Frames are digital data transmission units that may be used in a link layer protocol for data exchange between two network nodes via a physical link or a logical link. A frame may consist of a link-layer header followed by a packet. Frame-based transport involves using frames to transport data from one network node to another network node. Various frame-based protocols may be used to implement frame-based transport, including Ethernet, Generic Frame Protocol (GFP), Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), etc. In service provider networks, encapsulation of one frame-based protocol into another frame-based protocol is very common (e.g., Ethernet into GFP, Ethernet into MPLS, Ethernet into Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB)), and may add a significant per frame encapsulation overhead to the frame-based transport.